We’ve just spent our first night in Hanoi, after arriving early last night by car. We’re staying at the Holiday Hotel on Hang Manh Street, which in itself is nothing special but is right in the thick of things in the Old Quarter.

It took us about 4 hours in total to travel here from Mai Chau, and by the time we arrived rush hour had begun and the roads were saturated with cars and motorbikes. Getting around by motorised vehicle is an organic experience to put it mildly - the term “right of way” doesn’t seem to exist here, and a “gangway” mentality backed up by the size of your vehicle / loudness of your horn seems to be the order of the day. Through all the chaos there hardly seem to be any accidents, which is even more crazy when you see bikers paying more attention to that urgent text message than the SUV barreling towards them. There’s a reason they don’t allow foreigners to drive here….   

It didn’t take us long to get settled in to our new digs, and we soon found ourselves out on the streets and back in very familiar territory. Hanoi is an exciting place to be at night, with so much going on it can be a little overwhelming. Keeping our wits about us and remembering the “crossing the road trick” (just walk out, and they will ride around you), we managed to find our bearings and headed off to explore the shops and markets.

As we weren’t feeling overly adventurous on food front, we had dinner in the relatively upscale Green Mango restaurant on Hang Quat street. The food here was excellent, with the menu broadly consisting of Asian / Western fusions, and they serve strongest cocktails on the planet, which was unfortunately way too strong for our watered-down tastes.